'Love Death and Socially Problematic Desire'
For this ISTD brief, I reimagined Shakespeare’s *Romeo and Juliet* through a queer lens, asking: *What if Romeo were a girl?* Inspired by the complex queer relationships of Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, and Emily Dickinson, the publication explores themes of love, death, and socially problematic desire within the context of a same-sex relationship. It examines the intersections of gender, sexuality, and societal constraints. Designed as a working playscript, the book is divided into three sections—Love, Socially Problematic Desire, and Death—mirroring the narrative's decline. The middle section, "Socially Problematic Desire," is concealed to symbolise forbidden love, featuring articles on same-sex desire, love, and death to deepen the narrative. Additionally, I incorporated tales from Alciato's *Book of Emblems*, a key influence on Shakespeare’s era, which appear as bookmarks between acts, enhancing the themes explored.
